


Las Penas Con Pan Son Menos

by VoluptuousPanic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Bishop Ring, Elnor Be Eating, Fandom Potluck, Gen, Night markets, Noodles, Picaresque, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoluptuousPanic/pseuds/VoluptuousPanic
Summary: Two men on a mission: get in, get noodles, get out. Of course nothing goes to plan.
Relationships: Elnor & Cristóbal Rios, Jean-Luc Picard & Cristóbal Rios, Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios
Comments: 18
Kudos: 33
Collections: Star Trek Fandom Potluck Collection





	Las Penas Con Pan Son Menos

“Cris, we changed course, didn’t we? I thought I heard a heading update on the Ops channel.”

“You’re not wrong, but...” Rios trailed off with a hard suck of cigar. He didn’t bother exhaling, just let the blue smoke flow out through his grimace. He’d been found out. She wasn’t even going to say ‘good morning.’ He tightened his teeth and sucked in again, scanning over the coordinates on his holo view. Looking at them was entirely unnecessary. They were saved in nav. 

Raffi pulled up the new heading on the display, swiping deftly through the overnight nav logs. She turned in her seat to face him, a moue of disapproval curling her lip as she gave a level glare, cut her eyes to the destination, and back again. She folded slim arms across her chest in judgment and shook her head. Rios felt about twelve. Like he’d interrupted Mom’s coffee time. 

“What?” he asked defensively. “It’s been a minute.” It was more than a minute. A couple of years, actually.

“We are out here in the ass end of the quadrant and you mean to tell me we’re burning fuel to get all the way to Solaris Station without a paid job, just to pick up a scheduled to-go order?”

Rios shrugged and inhaled.

“That you put in three days ago?”

“There’s enough for everyone. And I figured we could find a transport job once we got there.”

“Oh, believe me, I know what’s going down, Chris. I see it right here. We’re headed to Onaka Express in New Chennai. I thought the last round of Devil Level Ramen cured you of that.” 

Rios shrugged. Raffi was right. Raffi was almost always right, but she was especially right about this. The last round of Devil Level Ramen had nearly put him in the hospital until the EMH replicated a liter of milk and 2000mg of calcium carbonate. But Devil Level Ramen was like snake leaf. He couldn’t stay away. The occasional danger and ever-present moral slipperiness of a quick visit to an extra-planetary mega-station that was fuel depot, freighter container storage and commodities smuggler’s paradise paled in comparison to the sustained danger of the chili sauce at Onaka Express. Of course, Onaka Express also offered a full complement of yakitori dive favorites, homestyle sukiyaki, buldak wings and tteokbokki, as well as the best sushi in the quadrant. At breakfast, and only at breakfast, there was usually pho. Sometimes there was feng zhao if you knew how to ask. Fighting for the single table or a spot at the tiny counter, parking your butt on the curb to wolf down your order right there in the street, or picking up takeout was like being back in San Francisco at the Academy and on a bender, hopping the maglev to go from Chinatown to Little Saigon, Koreatown and Nihonmachi all in one night. Eating in the dining room around the corner, on the other hand, was like being at places in the Presidio or New Tokyo that were far above Rios’ pay grade. 

“I ordered some Omo-Soba for you,” Rios offered.

“I don’t like Omo-Soba,” Raffi bit out, then flashed a smile that made Rios feel like garbage. “Who’s going down with you for pickup?”

He shrugged again. “Thought it was something that me and the kid could do together.”

“Do not take that precious baby to Onaka Express!”

“He’s a grown man, Raffi! He can do what he likes. And I figure any chance he gets to get off this tub is probably good for him. And it seems like he and Soji are….” Rios made a face and a juvenile gesture to indicate what he couldn’t bring himself to say. “Sleeping together,” he managed. 

Raffi erupted in laughter. “Bitch, please,” she breathed. “They are staying up too late, braiding each other’s hair, eating candy and whispering about stuff. But they are _not_ doing that.”

“He’s…?”

“Cris, neither of those children know what they are, and you’ve got no business taking Elnor down to Jad Ishii’s noodle pervert paradise at the galaxy’s largest truck stop to help him find out. Especially after everything that’s happened.” 

“It’s not Jad or Jad’s place that’s the problem, Raf.”

“I know, it’s getting there.” Raffi sighed. 

“ _Ay, cabrón. Es muy peligroso._ ” Emmett grunted. _“A veces.”_

“Deactivate ETH,” Raffi barked.

_“Puta…_ ”

“It’s a long and boring walk through the dregs of civilization. I get it. It’s a quest. Which is why you need Elnor. This is a shitshow. Jesus, Cris.” 

Rios shrugged, hands extended in a placative gesture. Or maybe in preparation for a verbal crucifixion. It could go either way with Raffi. He knew she didn’t particularly care for Jad. Or Jad’s politics. But Raffi never seemed to hold a grudge once dinner was served, whether it was take out or dine in. 

Raffi sighed, and returned to her coffee with a sideways glance. “If you’re going down there I want Naporitan and vegan kushikatsu and I don’t care if they don’t go together. And Cris, you best be back so fast the kushikatsu is still crispy. And tell Jad hello.” 

___

“What are you going to do with yourself, hermanito?” 

Elnor shrugged listlessly. “I don’t know. What would you do, in my position?”

Rios exhaled a laugh. Now that he’d put two and two together, and had spent some time watching, any answer he had to give was wrong, at least for this kid. Generally speaking, if Rios were as gutted as Elnor—and Rios knew what it felt like—he’d find himself a girl to dive into. It was what he’d done, more or less, with Agnes, and he supposed it was the same for her. Neither of them were prime relationship material, but it would do, for now. For Elnor, though, things seemed to be more complicated. Rios knew the right people to ask in NewChen to find a wide selection of girls who would be game for alleviating Elnor’s innocence, if not his heartbreak. They’d at least be gentle with him. Rios supposed he probably knew the right people to ask to find a selection of boys who would be equally good at fucking the pain away, if indeed that was what the kid needed. And it might well be, considering Elnor’s eyes welled any time anyone so much as mentioned Hugh. So did Seven’s, and Soji’s. Picard just looked away. Rios felt like a heel for missing it with everyone, but it was different with Elnor. Hugh must have been something else. Rios knew that feeling, and that it went far beyond whatever warrior nun call of duty that held Elnor’s moral compass. Rios had personal experience with that kind of double whammy. But time didn’t permit for any of that with the clearance codes they’d be operating on. It was get in, pick up, get out. He could have planned better. 

Rios sighed. The kid deserved the unvarnished truth. “If I were you? Get hammered and find someone to take my cherry.” Rios had yet to find the people missing from his life in the bottom of a bottle or in someone’s bed, but neither did age and experience deter him from looking in either place from time to time. 

Elnor looked confused for a moment, then realization of Rios’ meaning dawned. Elnor’s face flushed green, and just as quickly, he returned to icy composure. Rios found Elnor’s slipperiness unsettling, how Elnor was one thing and then the other, changing like quicksilver: naif then prophet, ascetic then killer, heartbroken romantic then calculating mercenary, open then opaque. Elnor knit his eyebrows together and looked down, shaking his head. He fiddled with the edge of a sleeve, then picked at a callus on his palm. Right now, Elnor was just a sad boy, far from home. 

Rios patted Elnor’s shoulder, then squeezed. “You asked. _Orale_ , we got shit to do, _mijo_.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. But leave the sword. We’ve gotta go down unarmed, and we’ve gotta be fast.” Rios hoped the kid liked noodles.

___

“Weapons,” the woman at the entry control counter said cheerfully as she reviewed their credentials and scanned the display that captured myriad views of _La Sirena_ and their little two man party presently in arrivals inspection. She was human or human adjacent and wore a grey security uniform that fit in such a way Rios would have taken a closer look in different circumstances. 

Instead, Rios and Elnor conducted a wordless conversation comprised of nods and shrugs. The kid had no nuance with regard to facial expression so it was pointless to get eyebrows involved, and Rios had a hard time reading Romulan duplicity, let alone Elnor’s unsettling candor. Rios inclined his head to direct Elnor to the counter. 

“ _Ay, dios mio_ ,” Rios breathed as he watched Elnor reach into every wrap in his robes that could conceivably store a weapon, each pull drawing back yet another short blade that he lay on the claim counter in a neat row. “Is that it?” Rios asked with a sigh, realizing he’d asked Elnor to leave behind only the sword, as opposed to every other shiv and shank Elnor seemed to be carrying. 

“Yes,” Elnor answered with a nod and then a boyish smile when the woman pushed a metal claim ticket across the counter. His gaze followed the woman’s gloved arm as she swept the collection of knives into a carbonate tub. 

The woman’s attention landed on Rios. “Weapons,” she intoned smoothly, with none of the patience she’d offered Elnor. Rios swore he could hear sarcasm. 

“ _No mames_ ,” he offered cordially, trusting that her translator would hear one thing rather than the other. He gave a stiff smile and reached down to the cargo pocket at his right thigh to retrieve the multitools she’d evidently gotten a read on. One was a selection of hex keys with a hacksaw, the other engineer’s cutting and stripping tools with a single blade that would be doing well to cut butter. 

“Weapons,” she said again.

Irritation rising, Rios patted his trouser pockets and ran his hands over his tactical vest. The side pockets were empty save for two washers that were hardly worth mentioning. In the inside breast pocket, though, he found her quarry: the guillotine cigar cutter he was never without. He sighed and spun it across the counter to land with the tools. She passed him a claim ticket identical to Elnor’s. 

“Please present the contents of the locker,” the woman instructed, gesturing at the empty transport crate on the small anti-grav hand truck that Rios had piloted through the docking bay and into inspection. He rested a foot on a thruster proprietarily, but humored her, bending to open the toggle latches that secured the lid. 

Satisfied that the Insulfoam lined bin posed no threat, she waved them on. “Thank you, enjoy your visit. Please ensure that you arrive to Departure Inspections with your claim tokens and any items that must be declared by no later 2100.” 

They had just over two hours.

___

Maglev transitways connected the docking and fueling ports to NewChen, a segment of the outer ring that encircled the inner research zone and station hub. Like the Fenris Sector, the weeds had grown up at Solaris Station in the last decade of the Federation’s decline. Now the station was more like Freecloud than anything else. But a century older and weirder. And if Freecloud was an intraquadrant motor plaza, transport hub and dilithium depot: a garden of fuel and food and flesh and the corporations that developed, engineered, bought and sold each commodity at competing price points. 

As a fueling outpost and research facility, the station was massive, exponentially larger than its twentieth century design prototypes, and a place of extremes in everything except curiously temperate climate. Cities of glass and light and multiple arboretums juxtaposed with dark zones of twisting narrow pathways between permanently grounded cargo containers that had become their own petty municipalities. Given the structured interior curve of the ring, each diminishing horizon alternately afforded views of other places that were not NewChen, and the hard vacuum of space. Rios found the centrifugal gravity and funhouse mirror aspects of the monolithic scale unnerving, and successive visits had done little to ease the weirdness. And, of course, Elnor was fascinated. 

“ _Lo siento_ , I brought you down here too late. You should see it in the day.” Rios said, attempting to redirect Elnor from where he stood, stock still in the street, oblivious to the crush of passers by, to stare up into the gargantuan curves steepled with yet more of the city, and then into the void of black sky bisected by the inner ring and hub. “It’s a tube, kid. Like a donut.”

“No, it is a Bishop ring,” Elnor said with grave wonder. “ _That_ is a torus,” he said, pointing toward the inner research facility. He turned in a tight circle to look up and out into the dark blue and last line of dusky red at each edge of the artificial atmosphere, then leveled his gaze at the street. 

Rios could see what Elnor was doing. That he clocked their location and surroundings, calculating escape routes, estimating potential danger. And that the kid’s hackles were up because his Romulan Wu Tang energy and what little Rios could do with his fists were their only weapons. Rios didn’t feel any danger for now, aside from the ticking clock on their departure when the docking clamps would automatically disengage from _La Sirena_ , leaving them stranded until another docking clearance could be secured. Rios hadn’t been entirely honest with Raffi. He’d requested clearance and codes three standard weeks ago and had pulled some strings to get them. The call to Onaka Express had gone in the first possible order window. There had to be some sort of emotional compensation for what went down at Coppelius. Might as well be noodles made by someone who could appreciate the complexity of the situation. Not that Rios was planning on sharing the particulars. He’d spare Jad that much. 

“Don’t get distracted. We’ve got somewhere to be and don’t have time to dawdle.”

Elnor sighed, clearly deflating. “Your obfuscation makes me uncomfortable. I still don’t understand why we are here.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises. They are usually unpleasant and sometimes embarrassing.”

They walked on, down the main drag, Rios guiding the hand truck and insulated crate. Little seemed to have changed since Rios’ last visit. A few places had closed, a few had opened. NewChen’s business district was almost exclusively commodities trading conglomerates housed in glass towers. At their feet and in the alleys between was where the hawking of smaller commodities happened. A riot of neon and holographic signage from a thousand worlds in a thousand languages, advertised everything from looted antiquities marketed as non-replicated artisan-made crafts to consumer grade personal electronics to illicit contraband synth technology. In the wake of the past couple of months, Rios didn’t really want to think about the origins of those goods. _La Sirena_ had been in the Artifact parking lot long enough for Rios to figure that out on his own. But for the most part, the streets of NewChen centered on the buying and selling of agricultural commodities that came down from the transport hub. Temple Street, where they were headed—before a sharp left that Rios hoped was still marked with spray painted katakana script that said, simply, “ramen”—was the largest wet market in the Alpha quadrant, but chiefly devoted to fruits and vegetables from all over the galaxy. And fish. And insects. And chickens. Or anything that looked like a chicken. Or laid edible eggs that looked like eggs. And things made from all of the above. That maze, the labyrinthine food hall—if the hundreds of little stands crammed together under the sulfurous light could be called that—was their destination.

“Which way?” Elnor asked. Rios could hear his unease, but he sounded more excited than on the alert. Elnor continued, barely able to stand still. “I have never seen this many people or things in one place!” 

Rios scanned the street in front of them and indicated a path through the middle where the milling of customers and tourists was thinner. “Straight ahead.” He clapped a hand on Elnor’s shoulder and gave a gentle shove and was eased when Elnor cracked a smile. He was just a kid, and there wasn’t anything fair about the reasons he’d been brought along for the ride. Rios resolved in that moment that there was a berth for Elnor as long as he needed one. Elnor didn’t need to earn his keep. He did enough for everyone already, powered by his weird combination of martial precision, innocence and compassion. How the hell did the kid know what a Bishop ring was? What was up with his uncanny ability to know exactly what everyone was thinking yet always say the wrong thing? Why was he so obsessed with cats? 

Rios let Elnor set their pace, so they moved quickly and efficiently, and Rios was glad to still be young and agile enough to keep up and not galumph behind, even pushing the crate. They were making good enough time that he’d catch Elnor’s attention now and then to direct him to have a look at something or another: gargantuan fruit, a two-meter high pyramid of limes, a high-stakes game of chicken shit bingo emceed by a Ferengi in a yellow satin suit. Rios was heartened that Elnor understood the principle of the game immediately. It was the first time Rios had seen Elnor laugh in weeks. 

As they moved through the artificial dusk through the crowd and sea of smells, Rios heard the occasional, and then more frequent murmurs long before he saw the slight bows and gestures of open hands. Each was a soft, reverential repetition of “Sister,” directed at Elnor. The kid didn’t seem to mind, and with equal reverence returned the gesture and accepted the small offerings that were occasionally passed into his hands, tucking them into a bag that he’d pulled from some fold of clothing. The greetings came from other Romulans who were all kinds of people: a Tal Shiar Aendeh in harnessed uniform, a girl in a veil, two small boys in threadbare coveralls, a man in a bloodied butcher’s smock whose hair was long like Elnor’s. The gifts were pieces of fruit, sweets and savories wrapped in paper, and then from a willowy woman shrouded in black, a small, flat loaf of bread that stopped Elnor in his tracks with a look of awe and something like homesickness. Rios stepped away to give the kid a moment with his bread. When Rios decided it had been long enough, he backtracked. 

Elnor was gone. 

____

Rios scanned the street and teeming bunches of bodies in the pools of light that surrounded each stall and counter. Amongst every race known in the Federation there were Romulans aplenty in this corner of NewChen. But no Elnor. “Raffi,” he said apprehensively “we might have a problem down here. I’ve lost Elnor.” 

Rios was surprised by Raffi’s bark of laughter. “What do you mean you’ve lost Elnor? He’s a six and half foot tall murder nun. Look around. Anything that big can’t just wander off. Give him a minute to himself. He’ll turn up.”

“No, Raff. You know where we are. Weapons check. The dog’s got no teeth, hermana. And I’m holding his comm badge.” Rios looked at the titanium mermaid in his palm. It must have come unfastened when Elnor was slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Oh shit, Cris. You’re on your own in NewChen.” Raffi deadpanned. Her chortling stopped, but her amusement persisted. It pissed him off. But being pissed off that way kept him going, especially when it came from Raffi. “He’s fine,” Raffi continued. “You’re fine. Just find him before you get stuck there. And before one or the other of you gets an unsightly rash from something.”

“Yeah. I’ll find him. Keep comms open.”

“Copy.”

“I’m serious, Raff.” Rios let out a long, slow breath, watching a group of Bolians mill the service area of a long counter manned by a Talaxian. The sign said ‘Culinary Caustics.’ Rios knew what Bolians ate. Dead meat. How he’d find himself if he came back alone. And the truth was, he was more afraid of Raffi than Picard. 

“I know you are. But there’s nothing to worry about. Just go do your thing and don’t do anything crazy. Elnor found his way on and off a Borg cube. He’ll be fine. You’ll be OK.” Raffi sounded like a mom, exasperated and genuinely convinced. 

Rios had a bad feeling, but he knew where to go for intel. And for a drink. 

____

_Come to Quark’s! Quark’s is fun! Come right now! Don’t walk, run!_ Quark’s was a beacon of familiarity. And, depending on the franchise location, a beacon of intel. But getting to it was more than a little like getting the feng zhao at Onaka Express. It was all in the asking. And Rios, who’d never been particularly good at subterfuge or duplicity, was rusty. _This_ was why he preferred to stay on the ship. And the little Ferengi coming at him already looked like he might prefer to stay in his back office countinghouse for the same reasons. 

The Ferengi gave a toothy smile that immediately put Rios even more ill at ease. “I am the proprietor of this establishment, which is the flagship location and not a franchise. Quark, at your service. For a nominal fee I’m all ears.” Rios registered the discreet motion of thumb against forefingers that Quark made with the hand that wasn’t deftly topping off what was left of Rios’ drink. 

“ _The_ Quark?” Rios asked, digging in the wallet pocket on the inside of his vest. He fished out the credit chip he was carrying in case of emergency. It was everything he had on him, and he’d hoped to cash it, split it into smaller denominations before going further into the maze in case small handoffs were needed for information, a blind eye, or a quick game of dom-jot at the hall across from Onaka Express if there was a wait for pickup. Rios felt the sick heat of worry and disappointment in his guts and casually slid the chip across the bar. As he parted with the credits, he realized he’d _wanted_ to take Elnor for a round of dom-jot. He’d wanted to show Elnor the game and be bested by Elnor’s innate understanding of strategy and physics. The kid could be a ringer. And now he was in trouble. Or maybe just lost. Or potentially worse. 

“The one and only,” Quark answered with a small bow after eyeing the chip and noting the denomination before neatly pocketing it in his fuchsia tailcoat as he returned the bottle to the well with a flourish. “I hear you’re looking for something to go with this glass of Hooman swill that I sell at five times the wholesale price. More if you’re Starfleet. But it is the real deal, if that’s what you’re wondering. What do you want?”

Rios shrugged, attempting to stay casual. He downed the rye, which was much more than needed at the present, then leaned on one elbow with the knowledge it made him look like a dick, even if he couldn’t work up the semi-apathy he was trying to project. To make it seem like business. “I came down here for a pick up from Jad Ishii’s place. Now I’m missing someone from my crew. I’m just looking for some leads.” 

“If you’re seeing Jad for anything, on or off his menu, you’re definitely not Starfleet, at least not anymore. Which begs the question: what’s your scheduled departure window?” Quark leaned on a elbow too, looking up at Rios, eyebrow ridge raised. 

Rios could feel the frank appraisal, that Quark was using whatever that weird mojo was that bartenders used to get to the root of your problem and make your order more. Rios knew better than to believe the smarmy compassion, especially delivered by a Ferengi. But as the silence continued, something felt genuine, and Rios dropped his guard. This was too important. He sighed. “I’ve got little over an hour left. I’m not as connected as I used to be. I thought someone here might have a bead on what kind of nasty piece of work might be interested in a fresh off the freighter backwater Romulan kid who can fight like a motherfucker.” 

“You brought a commodities colony farm boy to NewChen?” Quark deadpanned. 

“Something like that.” 

Quark shrugged, rolled his eyes, then nodded with something that looked to Rios like resignation and care. The change in his posture was almost imperceptible. But it was there. “Depends,” Quark breathed. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and things have calmed down since then. It’s not like it used to be, when I’d tell you to cut your losses. Since the new security detail is a pack of Romulans, you might get some traction if you ask the right questions. But they’re a funny bunch and operate outside of regular Tal Shiar unpredictability. They’re so efficient and brutal it kind of makes your skin crawl. It’s unnatural really.”

Rios’ guts dropped. “Zhat Vash?”

“Something like that. To me, though, it seems like the worst a naive kid might get pulled into right now is some garden variety shell game action if he’s inclined to that and simple enough. Or maybe this new Romulans Only thing…if he’s inclined to conversation and simple enough. But on the other hand, if he’s pretty in the way that some people who are still around here like a bad smell, like…” Quark gestured with a rolling flutter of hand and another little bow, heavy with meaning. 

Rios shrugged. “I mean…not what _I’m_ into, but…” Rios could hold his cool on the outside, but his real fear screeched into view even before Quark’s innuendo. How Elnor, newly fascinated with the mechanics of duplicity could fall prey to a feigned offer of directions or kindness. And how Zhat Vash and Tal Shiar alike used manipulation and attachment to entrap. And worse. But Elnor, Rios reminded himself, was far from a child, and had tested Zhat Vash’s mettle, even if he could be swayed by candy. Rios chose his words carefully. “To be absolutely candid, Mr. Quark, I could see Zhat Vash being very interested.”

Quark didn’t bite in any way that indicated that doings at Coppelius or with the Artifact had rippled across quadrant intel. “No, no. I see where you’re coming from. Romulans could be your problem then. The way Tal Shiar still carries on, you’d think they’re still looking for payback for that little supernova incident. Romulans are like that: an eye for an eye, et cetera. We Ferengi would just send a bill followed by collections agents. Making people disappear leaves too many loose ends. NewChen hasn’t had many outright kidnappings of that style take place in the open in…” Quark shrugged. “…several cycles, but it doesn’t mean that other kinds of disappearing or trafficking aren’t happening. It’s the best and worst we’ve got going here if you’re into high yield exotic commodities. Or selling to Romulans. Which I am. I’ll ask around. Stay on schedule. Do your thing with Jad and bring him up to speed too. Keep a cool head. Could be your Romulan boy is just lost. Could also be you’re being watched. These new Romulans—”

_Dabo!_ Quark held up a hand to pause the conversation, long enough to observe the winner was a big and sturdy Lurian who seemed to be more than a little familiar with the girl spinning the wheel. “That one’s for show,” Quark confided with a grin full of teeth. “Makes the tourists think their ROR odds are better here. Don’t bet against the house at Quark’s.”

Rios nodded gravely. He wasn’t quite sure of Quark’s meaning, but at this point it didn’t matter. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“I’ll send someone to the Temple Street exit in an hour. We’ll have information at minimum. You haven’t been here long enough for this to be a lost cause.”

Rios bristled at Quark’s uncanny choice of words, but extended a hand because it seemed like the thing to do. Quark responded with the kind of bonecrushing grip learned from dealings with Federation and Maquis. Against better judgment, Rios trusted him. And if there was anything that Rios had managed to learn from Elnor, it was seeing past all the bullshit to get to the heart of a matter. In this case, the heart of the matter was that Elnor was missing and Quark was the unofficial mayor of New Chennai who had stubby little green-nailed fingers in every facet of business and pleasure, both legitimate and not. 

______

Elnor was far from the first thing that Rios had lost on the way to Onaka Express. Chiefly, Rios had lost his dignity, more than once. NewChen seemed to bring that out in people, like there was some kind of disinhibition agent in the water. Not that Rios had ever had water to drink on NewChen, but he’d done more than his share of eating. Raffi was right. NewChen was the truck stop at the ass end of the quadrant, the last big, gleaming reach of the long arm of the Federation, last chance to buy this or sell that, last chance for fuel, maintenance and food that wasn’t replicated. But somehow it all came back to food. It didn’t really matter how arduous the journey was to get there, how hard it was to get a docking window, or what kind of riffraff or depravity you ran into on the street, it all came down to where you went to eat and what you did on the way to and from. It was a wonder to Rios that Solaris was still a research post and that there was a whole planet within view where the Federation had spent over a century tinkering with water, landmasses, seeding wildlife. But he also supposed that kind of tunnel vision on commerce was what kept the station turning. Trade funded research and kept Solaris a going concern. Rios wasn’t even entirely sure what went on in the inner torus anymore. Still something to do with terraforming, hence the commodities connection. Which explained the chicken trade, the Ferengi chicken shit bingo racket, Quark’s and the dozen deals on Jad’s buldak wings. 

Keep a cool head, Quark had said. He’ll be fine, Raffi had said. Rios looked up at the mammoth curve of the habitation ring again as he waited for the walk signal at the illuminated zebra crossing and thought of the wonder on Elnor’s face. The shit that kid, still a child in Romulan years, had seen and done. And there was still wonder on Elnor’s face every goddamned day, even with the sadness he was dragging around. _Ay dios mio_. There wasn’t a whole lot of wonder in Rios’ world anymore, yet he felt like he’d seen more to marvel at in the last few months than he had seen in an entire career in Starfleet. And Jana—Soji? Dahj? Sutra? Did it make a difference?—was at the axis of it, when everything that went down on the _Ibn Majid_ had pulled the rug out from his understanding of what the Federation and Starfleet had even stood for. Rios was back where he started, in more ways than one. On a ship with a charismatic leader, captaining a dysfunctional crew whose every existence had been touched by the same sets of lives and deaths, and at a literal crossroads where a little sign with an arrow still pointed the narrow way into an alley. Rios stopped and pulled a cigar from the pencil pocket of his vest. With no cutter, he chewed the end off and spat it into the gutter, then lit up from a book of matches taken from Quark’s. 

Rios stepped into the sulfur light-strung darkness dragging the hand truck and crate behind him. Get in, pick up, get out, have some fucking faith for once, find Elnor. Tonight _La Sirena_ ’s crew would eat together like a family. He might make that a new thing. 

____

The smell of Jad’s little dark alley and Onaka Express was assault on the senses: fish sauce, miso, shoyu, kecap manis, garlic, ginger, hot mustard, sriracha, sambal, gochujang, kimchee and umeboshi all rolled into one. At the takeout counter, the air was humid with steam and heavy with the funk of hot grease and the aromas hung in it. Rios inhaled. It was like heaven, but a special kind that stuck on hair and skin for days to remind a sinner of his sins. 

“I almost didn’t believe it when I saw your call sign come upon this order. What’s it been, man? Two years?” It was Jad Ishii, in the flesh, leaning over the counter and extending a hand. 

“Just about.” Rios responded, giving the _Ibn Majid_ dap as if it hadn’t been nearly a decade. 

“Just can’t quit me, can you?” Jad opened the latch on the dutch door counter and stepped out to crush Rios into a hug that Rios returned heartily. “Jesus, are you going to put this order in stasis when you get back up top?” Jad continued once their greeting had concluded and the two kitchen porters who came out behind him had loaded the neatly tied and bagged stacks of cartons into the waiting crate. 

Rios looked at Jad’s crisp service whites, heavy black kitchen goggles and tattooed arms and neck, half convinced Jad was younger every time he saw him. But Rios could see now that Jad had gotten around encroaching gray by just shaving his head. Otherwise, he looked as wet behind the ears as he had on the _Ibn Majid_ when he’d been a skinny science officer who’d commandeered a holodeck on that night of horror, intent on doing nothing but replicating ingredients, cooking and serving to cope. Now Jad was a skinny middle-aged restauranteur as well known for his legendary dive in NewChen as he was for running in the same crackpot conspiracy circles as Raffi. Rios knew now that there was something to those, and Quark’s tip to bring Jad up to speed suddenly made sense. Rios would spare Jad the full monty. There just wasn’t enough time to explain something that had the potential to rattle shared skeletons that Rios knew Jad preferred to keep contained. 

“Hauling six now, some crew, some not. I imagine we’ll kill it.” It was true. 

“Yeah…and little big-eared birdie from the bar told me one of them’s in trouble. He said you were traveling with some beast of a Romulan country boy who might’ve wandered off. And that he might have made himself some kind of target for, shall we say, uniquely Romulan foul play. Of course, Quark is a fucking pervert and also seemed to think your Romulan rough trade might be of interest for other purposes.”

Rios made a face. “He also alluded to NewChen having a Zhat Vash problem.”

Jad smirked and rolled his eyes. “He’s Ferengi. He’ll allude to anything that might make him a buck and deals from both sides of the deck. But he’s usually good on his word. Decent. For a Ferengi." 

“I don’t know what to believe, Jad, but I’ve got to find this kid. One, Raffi will kill me. Two, he deserves to have people do right by him. We’ve had some dark times that Tal Shiar and Zhat Vash were a little too involved in and he lost someone he felt responsible for. He’s Qowat Milat—”

“He?! How?!” Jad interrupted. 

“Yeah, he was an orphan or something. They took him in. Lived his whole life in a convent on Vashti until he got pulled into this clusterfuck.” 

“Dude, have you checked the temple?” 

Rios opened his mouth, and closed it again in disbelief. He scrubbed a hand at his hair and let out the breath he’d held for the last hour. “The temple?”

“Yeah, man. The Qowat Milat temple. On Temple Street? The girls have been keeping the peace for us for the past standard year or so since most of the Tal Shiar goon squad shipped out. Saves us having to hire anyone to come in from Fenris and they’re better equipped for dealing with the little Romulan ethnonationalist issue that makes trouble for people like me.” Jad made a motion across his neck with the tips of his fingers. “Tal Shiar weren’t exactly unsympathetic to that cause, so it’s been a nice change. They’re right by the alley you take to come in here. You can’t miss it. Hang out for a second. I’ll put in a call.”

What little worry that Rios was still hanging onto fizzled when Jad rounded the corner again with a thumbs up. 

“Go get your Sister-Brother, Rios. He’s fine. I called off Quark’s dogs too. Don’t want anyone losing an ear.” 

“I appreciate your help.”

“ _Nandemonai_. You need a receipt with that order?” 

“ _Ay pendejo_ , do I never not need a receipt to get out of this shithole?!” 

“Fuck you, man.”

“ _Chinga tu madr_ e. I’ll see you in six months, Jad.” 

“Be safe. Give my regards to Raffi. And come by sometime when you’re not in a rush. It’d be good to have a sit down so you can fill in the blanks on what’s really going on. I can do a table for you if you want to bring the family down.”

Rios blew a kiss. He had thirty minutes to find Elnor. He slapped his comm badge to reach Raffi.

____

Whatever picture of Qowat Milat Rios had in his head when Picard first told of the Romulan warrior nuns had been wrong. Rios chalked it up to fantasy: a group of female Elnors, willowy elven _brujas_ in flowing robes, lounging about in their Romulan fairy kingdom, and occasionally, serenely fighting. The few times he’d seen Elnor in terrifying action—calmly, almost impassively wielding the tan qalanq as an extension of his already lethal body— should have disabused Rios of that notion. Even watching Elnor go through the motions in the cargo bay gave Rios the chills. But the idea of nuns, cloistering, women living apart by choice sent Rios’ head to medieval epics and the tales his mother and grandmother told of Carmelites, Ursulines and Poor Clares. Rios had clung to the myth of beautiful virgins saving their bodies and souls for Jesús Cristo, but was confronted by the real arrayed on the temple steps under the cool blaze of the street light at the zebra crossing, across the way from the twisting lane that led to Jad’s alley: ideological mercenaries in muddy black and khellid blue, armed to the teeth. All women, except Elnor, who looked at home and at ease among them, divine and dangerous. 

The warrior nuns were milling around, as if waiting for something. There was one, small and fierce and leathery, who looked important. She was in billowing dark blue robes and headdress, with heavy silver beads in her braided hair, heavy bracelets at her wrists, eyes, lips and fingers blackened. Her weathered face and battle-honed austerity made Elnor look a dewy May Queen. Rios could see then why Elnor, smooth featured and gentle, was simply accepted as Qowat Milat provided he didn’t speak. But Rios knew too, that generalizations were dangerous. A few of the Sisters in the large retinue were as young, sinewy and physically imposing as Elnor, others small women like the Reverend Mother, still others more thickly built and harder than any Romulan Centurion or officer that Rios had encountered in his years with Starfleet. One nun, who seemed more priestess than warrior, wore robes so voluminous they pooled in the street. All were armed, all wore headscarves of coverings of some type. One sister, whose face was covered, was pregnant, and bore not one, but two tan qalanq. Rios thought first of what he knew of the remaining Catholic nuns on Earth and in the few Jesuit colonies, then of geishas he’d seen in old Kyoto, and then his first experience meeting a Vulcan delegation in full ceremonial dress. And then he thought of Kali Ma and her garland of severed heads, remembering well Elnor’s and Narek’s philosophical disagreement about Ganmedan. Qowat Milat, like Zhat Vash, embodied both myth and history. The whole of Romulan civilization was carried and maintained by women, and the divine feminine was held and tended from these two extreme and opposing viewpoints of order, control and mystery. Rios understood then why Qowat Milat were revered and feared. He also understood then the things about Elnor that confused him.

Rios cooly crossed the intersection and steered his crate up to the temple steps. He looked up again just in time to see Elnor race toward him in a swirl of black and blue, coming at him with all the power and inevitable impact of a runaway cargo transport sledge, slamming into a rough embrace with a boyish smile. Rios had no choice but to hug Elnor back and did so with gusto, slapping Elnor’s back and lifting him from the ground with brute strength. Rios had never been so happy to see him. 

“I thought that you were lost, but the Reverend Mother and Sisters wouldn’t let me look for you. They insisted that if you went in there you knew where you were going and what you were doing,” Elnor explained quietly and gestured at the dark gap between the freight containers that made up the city within NewChen where Onaka Express was hidden. “I listened to them. They are usually right. I also didn’t know how I would have found you.” 

Rios dug in a pocket and retrieved Elnor’s comm badge with a flourish. “Would have been easier if you’d had this.”

“Oh,” Elnor said with a grin, his shoulders rising with a twitch of laughter. He nodded. “I didn’t mean to become distracted and I was so excited. A Sister approached me in the street. I’m sorry that we became separated, but I also considered that my delivery to the Sisters was as you intended.”

Rios ran a hand over his beard, then stood, hands on hips, and regarded Elnor. He took in Elnor’s expectant grin and open expression in disbelief that the kid’s wiring was so uncomplicated, that Elnor simply took on experiences as they came to him. That a troupe of wild women with swords and their lost boy had found no reason to tear apart NewChen looking for an ex-Starfleet freighter captain who was on his way to pick up noodles. That they just assumed that Rios would just return at the right time. That the kid would assume this was part of some plan, like Freecloud all over again with lower stakes. Rios arched a brow and nodded. There was nothing to say. 

The leathery little woman approached them and Elnor gave a little bow. “Reverend Mother,” Rios said in greeting, without thinking, but managed not to cross himself. Rios could see that she had once been beautiful, and still had some wily, feminine mojo that made him feel weird in that way that Raffi did sometimes. The Qowat Milat Reverend Mother was definitely not a Bride of Christ. 

She smiled openly, revealing an even row of shiny, blackened teeth. “ _Jolan’tru_ ,” she said, looking Rios in the eye, gesturing with open hands. Her Standard was heavily accented. “You are late,” she stated simply, then turned and said something gentle and motherly to Elnor in Rihan, her hand on his arm. 

Elnor nodded with his guileless, wide smile and escorted the Reverend Mother back to the other Mothers, Sisters and novitiates. Rios watched as the women, one by one, said goodbye to Elnor, each clasping him in a tight embrace that he returned eagerly. There were kisses pressed to Elnor’s cheeks and forehead, and the pregnant woman took Elnor’s hand and pressed his palm to her belly. When only the Reverend Mother remained, Elnor knelt in the street for her blessing. _Esto es privado._ Rios turned away and waited. 

“ _Jale, hermano._ We’re gonna be late,” Rios said when Elnor returned, wearing the picker’s sack of offerings he’d accumulated earlier and bearing two towers of interlocking hammered copper containers like suitcases. Either Elnor was smuggling viinerine, or Rios had been bested at his own plan, possibly some of both. 

Bested or not, with an anti-grav hand truck there was no sense in being overburdened. And doing something from his hands kept Rios from thinking too much about the possibility that maybe Elnor was better off out here in the wilds of NewChen with the Qowat Milat. And from thinking too much about how it would feel once it was time for the kid to shove off and find a new cause to swing a sword for. Rios wasn’t sure the kid had a cause anymore. It seemed like he’d left a piece of his spirit in that cube on Coppelius. Rios hefted one of the tiffin towers up and set it on top of his crate. The metal gave off heat like a brazier. He let Elnor manhandle the other into position. That one was cold. “What’s in the lock box, kid?” he asked after Elnor had turned to take one last look at the nuns lining the temple steps. 

“Dinner. For everyone on _La Sirena_. There are many things, but it makes me sad to leave the Sisters. It is like leaving Vashti. There is no place for me and I am needed elsewhere.“ Elnor pressed a sleeve to his eyes without missing a beat. “What’s in the box?” 

Rios pushed at the grip of the hand truck and nudged one of the thrusters into life again with the toe of his boot. “Just something I had to pick up.” 

“Thank you for not telling me that there was a temple here. It was a nice surprise.” 

Rios nodded. “Yeah, kid. I do what I can. _Vámanos._ ”

___

“Manifest?”

Rios looked up from the industrial stasis locker console at the sound of Raffi’s voice. With a grin, he added the last of the security code and listened to the locks and power cell engage. “Day and change of snacks. Everything on Jad’s menu and enough tsuyu to drown in. I put the receipt in Ops docs if you want to see what’s for lunch tomorrow.”

“You did good out there, Cris.”

“I know.”

“Go get cleaned up.”

Rios shrugged.

___

Rios listened to the sounds coming from above deck. It sounded like family, excited voices and humanity. Rios mounted the stairs to find Picard standing outside the holosuite, and that the holosuite was no longer Picard’s ready room. It had been transformed into another place entirely. 

“Shoes off, I believe.” Picard stated the obvious, gesturing at the neat row of shoes outside — Agnes’, Soji’s, Seven’s boots. Neither Raffi nor Elnor ever seemed to wear shoes onboard unless there was reason to do so. 

Rios shucked his boots. His socks were mismatched and there was a hole in the toe of the right one. Picard’s socks were striped in green and lavender and matched his shirt. Rios chose not to look more than once. 

Rios and Picard stepped off _La Sirena_ and into another world, into the bright, golden light of the end of day. There was a natural pavilion of trees with deep red foliage, an oasis of cool shade, protected from the surrounding dry, windswept scrub. The ambient heat was only a suggestion of programming, designed not to be realistically uncomfortable, but the air was heavy with late summer. Great floating insects like butterflies or moths worked the clusters of leaves in the trees. Chimes strung from the branches above whispered like tiny gamelan. Even Rios had to admit that it was beautiful, if hard and arid. He’d never been to Vashti’s surface, but its savage beauty and the hardscrabble existence it sustained were legend. That the Romulan physical constitution was more suited to the harsh conditions went without saying, yet any existence there was marked by adversity. 

“Elnor… I believe that you have invited us to Vashti and to Zani’s table.” 

“Steward did most of the work,” Elnor said. “I just set the table.” 

The table, if could be called that, was bountiful, and suddenly the neat cartons that Rios had placed in stasis for the following days were amateur and excessive. The spread laid out on indigo-dark cloth and scraps of huge leaves in myriad small bowls and plates of infinite variety was a study in subtle excess and the essential sensuality of food. Sweets and savories presented together, great hunks of fleshy melon or calabaza, other fruit neatly sliced and crushed alike, vegetable dishes both hot and cold, legumes and grains, a mound of various flat breads, bundles of mixed raw herbs and flowers, oils and pickles, a pool of resinous jam that glowed with the eerie, phosphorescent blue of kali-fal. And there was indeed a flagon of kali-fal, two pots of smoky tea, the huge growler of wine Elnor had carried in his arms like a child, and a stack of saucers for drinking. The combined scent of food and drink was heady, sharp, sweet and pungently herbaceous, and to Rios’ palate, indescribably alien in its complexity. He’d never seen such a variety or abundance of Romulan food. Come to think of it, Rios hadn’t seen such a beautiful or fragrant assemblage of Terran food since his childhood when his grandmother had taken him to light candles among marigold-bedecked ofrendas. But the food laid on the low rotating tray table before them was to be enjoyed by the living, and what was clear to Rios in Elnor’s joy, was that this beauty and thoughtful arrangement was mundane and comforting, a simple meal for a large family. 

“Do we get plates?” Agnes asked. “Is there a prayer?”

“No, we just…eat,” Elnor explained and gently spun the tray. 

“I understand,” Picard said, stopping the rotation with a gnarled hand, “the custom is to use bread as both utensil and serviette.” He tore off and brandished a hunk of bread in illustration. 

“Do not speak half truths, Picard.” Elnor sighed. “You have eaten with Qowat Milat on Vashti many times, and at Eitreih’hveinn.”

Rios helped himself to the booze and wordlessly poured a short round for himself, Picard, and Seven. Elnor demurred but happily held out empty saucers to Soji when she offered a wine. Elnor passed one of the brimming saucers to Agnes. Raffi pointedly reached for tea. No toasts were needed. _Arriba, abajo, afuera, adentro_. Rios winced at the camphorous burn that came to his sinuses long before the gamey honey sweetness met his tongue and the sinuous alcoholic warmth spread through his chest. There was nothing in the universe quite like kali-fal. It was like drinking cold fire or moonlight, like the smoothest, most fragrant mezcal tempered with the mentholated heat of a curandera’s liniment. It was an acquired taste, hard to come by, arguably toxic, and high on Rios’ list of vices when he could get his hands on it. He exhaled a long, likely flammable breath, feeling his lips curl into a smile. He opened his eyes to see Picard doing the same and Seven inhaling through her teeth after nearly gagging. Elnor’s gaze was on them in a way that reminded Rios that Elnor was very much an adult and that he had no interest in indulging. 

Rios raised an eyebrow in question and held out the bottle. “ _¿Hermano, quieres un caballito?_ ” 

Elnor shook his head. “I would like to keep my dinner on the inside where it belongs.” 

Rios laughed. The kid had a point. 

“My introduction to the Sisters and to Zani was on Rom’lass in the interest of kali-fal at Eitreih’hveinn long before Elnor was born,” Picard explained. “I was interested in diversifying my knowledge to plan for my retirement. Instead I drank a great deal and nearly succeeded in poisoning myself.” A wry smirk twisted Picard’s features. “Did you make this bread, Elnor? It is very good.” 

Elnor nodded modestly but fervently. “That one, but not the others. Being in the kitchens was very soothing and I am happy that they welcomed me. But the sisters at Solaris Station come from all over what is left of the Empire. The things that are common on Vashti and Virinat are different on Xanitla and Ralatak. And of course, different than on Rom’lass. Most of this is Virinati.”

Picard laughed. “It is easier on the palate than Vashtin fare.” 

“Wait…this food was made? None of this was replicated?” Agnes asked. Rios winced at the question, but shoved his irritation down. Where Agnes came from preparing food was unimaginably antiquated. 

“Oh honey, you’ve got a few things to learn about food,” Raffi said, leaning forward from her seat on the floor to dig in, going straight for the honey and what looked like fruit. 

“It’s like Vulcan food, right? No, I want to be surprised. Oh my Jesus fuck…what do I do? It’s so hot!”

Soji passed Agnes a hunk of bread. “The only thing you can do.” Soji laughed. 

“All of it,” Elnor said, watching Agnes take a bird-like bite of bread, then mimed shoving the whole thing in. “Yes. Don’t do that again. It is the incorrect way to eat. Of those, everything with bread.” 

“Why are there Qowat Milat on a mega station?” Soji asked.

“Agricultural commodities markets,” Rios explained.

“They come with the khellid and kheh and travel with the spirit. Qowat Milat protect the production and sale of kali-fal. The resources to make it are limited and tightly controlled.” Elnor said softly, his eyes lowered as if it were a confession before he looked up again, his face lighting with excitement. “And it is Eitreih’hveinn according to the Ram’lass Old Calendar. Many Sisters are at the temple. There is much to do and eat!” 

____

Rios jumped in surprise at the sound of footfalls on grating. Disturbed mid-inhale, he chewed without caution, feeling the heat creep into every oral surface, a vaguely unpleasant reminder of the going head to head with Elnor only hours before in a battle of wills involving the sauce that had nearly killed Agnes. The kid hadn’t broken a sweat. Jad’s chilis had nothing on whatever it was that made Romulans breathe fire. Rios followed the chilis with rice. 

The night watch intruder was Picard. “Captain Rios, you have mentioned your experience with a wide variety of foodways. But had you before tonight experienced the specific pleasure of Romulan colonial cuisine?” Picard asked, a knowing grin warming his weathered face as he rounded the end of the bridge to seat himself at Raffi’s Ops station. 

“Can’t say that I have,” Rios answered thickly, speaking around the plug of onigiri he was letting sit in his mouth to absorb the blast of chili pain. He couldn’t really say that before the recent months he’d had any experiences that had given him any kind of understanding of Romulans. Or experiences that had required his whole attention or heart. As he chewed, he looked at the back of Picard’s bald head and watched the old man stare out of the front view into the endless black. 

“I think that you are likely finding that your ‘Devil Level Ramen’…” Picard made air quotes with knotty fingers. “…is quite mild in comparison to the Romulan culinary assault to the senses. I am looking forward to gentler flavors tomorrow. I hear that there is Naporitan. I quite enjoy catsup.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Las Penas Con Pan Son Menos = Worries are less severe with bread
> 
> I was so excited when I got roped into contributing to Fandom Potluck! All because of one giant Romulan's love affair with bread and a whole lot of wanky posts about how the cultural essentials of foodways are lost via replication technology. 
> 
> Obviously, My Cris Rios is Mexican, which is arguably a canon oversight. But when canon is based on something that Chabon said in Instagram comments, I'm not sure it needs to be taken for gospel. (Chabon also continues to labor under the delusion that he's killed Hugh.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Las Penas Con Pan Son Menos by Voluptuous Panic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26267524) by [new fanfiction radio (Spinifex)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spinifex/pseuds/new%20fanfiction%20radio)




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